Any engineer will understand that a hybrid is a counter productive technology.

Sure...on paper and undergoing the Euro CO2 tests it records great figures. However they are not true figures as the car starts the test with a 'full' battery and ends with an 'empty' one. Carry on driving, and the battery will need to be charged up, and this charge comes mainly from petrol energy.

The OP mentioned running an AC when stationary.......this is not 'free' energy, he will pay for that later.

Yes there is some wasted energy that the alternator can harvest when applying the brakes, but you also have to lug around the additional weight, and increased rotational mass which off sets this.

Also, rememeber when you first got your new mobile phone? The battery lasted ages, then 3 years later it needs more frequent charges as the battery 'degraded'!!!! Well same thing applies to a Hybrid.

Good job it is on a lease, you wouldn't want to own one 4 years down the line.

Any engineer will understand that a hybrid is a counter productive technology.

Sure...on paper and undergoing the Euro CO2 tests it records great figures. However they are not true figures as the car starts the test with a 'full' battery and ends with an 'empty' one. Carry on driving, and the battery will need to be charged up, and this charge comes mainly from petrol energy.

The OP mentioned running an AC when stationary.......this is not 'free' energy, he will pay for that later.

Yes there is some wasted energy that the alternator can harvest when applying the brakes, but you also have to lug around the additional weight, and increased rotational mass which off sets this.

Also, rememeber when you first got your new mobile phone? The battery lasted ages, then 3 years later it needs more frequent charges as the battery 'degraded'!!!! Well same thing applies to a Hybrid.

Good job it is on a lease, you wouldn't want to own one 4 years down the line.

Apologies if this comes across as negative, but a spade is a spade.

I understand. But for me, even if the ActiveHybrid 3 got WORSE gas mileage than the 335i, I'd probably still get it. Gas mileage isn't the main point of this car.

...BMW needs to do a commercial explaining this. This is why Apple is so successful: their marketing tells people what to do with their products. You can't assume people will figure it out because chances are unless you hit them over the head with it, they won't. This thread is proof by itself.

I think the problem with lack of interest for the AH3 is that people haven't read enough about it's benefits and haven't used their imagination to see how it would benefit them in daily life.

Twice a day, every day, I go pick up food to eat and I only drive about a mile away from my house. With the AH3, I don't even have to start the engine and can do it on electric power only since it will go 2.5 miles and up to 45MPH on electric only.

It also gets 40MPG Hwy or better.

AND it goes 0-60 in 4.9 seconds.

And it has the new professional nav system that doesn't come out on the 328 and 335 until Nov production.

And because of its big battery pack, you can engage the air conditioning to turn on and cool down the car from your iPhone wherever you are before you get back to your car. Imagine eating a meal on a hot day or spending the day at a theme park and you can precondition your car so it's ice cold inside before you even get back to it.

And it's electric motor provides instantaneous torque (doesn't need to spool up like a gas engine), increasing response time from the time you step on the pedal until you feel something. And that electric motor adds 150 ft. lbs. of torque just by itself.

Need I go on with more benefits?...

This is post #12

A hybrid can go to the shops on battery power alone...yes

it can also run the aircon when the car is parked.....yes

it can do 40MPG highway......yes

BUT

it can't do all of these at once.
In the real world, driving to the shops on battery power, depletes the charge in the battery.
When you next drive the car normally, the petrol engine will be under high loads driving not only the car, but also the alternator to charge the battery back up....this means sh1tty gas mileage until it does that.
So the 'free' ride you had the other night going to the shops gets paid for in the end.
Worse than that, converting energy is a wasteful process, so you end up putting 110% back in to get back to your initial 100%. Laws of physics I'm afraid.
Wait it gets worse.....with an AH3 you get a 335i plus some lead in the boot. As we all know it is weight that makes fuel consumption worse, so a hybrid is starting off on the wrong foot.

Put all the above together and you get a car that is worse on fuel in the real world......great news you can switch the AC on when parked, one redeeming feature. .....but quite an expensive feature don't you think?

Until lightweight, high efficiency batteries are a reality, a hybrid will never work.

it can't do all of these at once.
In the real world, driving to the shops on battery power, depletes the charge in the battery.
When you next drive the car normally, the petrol engine will be under high loads driving not only the car, but also the alternator to charge the battery back up....this means sh1tty gas mileage until it does that.
So the 'free' ride you had the other night going to the shops gets paid for in the end.
Worse than that, converting energy is a wasteful process, so you end up putting 110% back in to get back to your initial 100%. Laws of physics I'm afraid.
Wait it gets worse.....with an AH3 you get a 335i plus some lead in the boot. As we all know it is weight that makes fuel consumption worse, so a hybrid is starting off on the wrong foot.

Put all the above together and you get a car that is worse on fuel in the real world......great news you can switch the AC on when parked, one redeeming feature. .....but quite an expensive feature don't you think?

Until lightweight, high efficiency batteries are a reality, a hybrid will never work.

This is very well said. I don't intend to rain on anyone's parade, but the benefit of hybrids is pure marketing hyperbole. The nail that you so effectively hit on the head is the fact that battery technology isn't advanced enough to support effective hybrid implementation.

The mass of the batteries is a huge detriment for the 98% of the time that they're just along for the ride. The losses incurred in recharging the batteries via the engine are another strike. Every time energy is transferred from one state to another there are losses. So why not just use it in it's natural form? In the real world, it's highly unlikely that regenerative braking will account for much in the way of useful charging. Newer, more efficient batteries MIGHT help this, but will never be 100%. The biggest opportunity for making hybrids viable would be some sort of PV solar integration that charges the batteries. THIS would make the technology more attractive. But alas solar PV isn't advanced enough yet either.

That run to the store on batteries alone isn't a "free ride" as it seems everyone is being led to believe. It's just energy that was stored in the batteries after they were charged by the gas engine previously. A simple aftermarket remote starter can also start your car from afar with HVAC heating/cooling the car for you.

From a pure economic standpoint, a hybrid never makes sense. The marginal increases in economy are far outweighed by the front end capital cost. In a leasing scenario, it is helped by a high residual, but this is an arbitrary number that the manufacturer has set in an effort to help get them out on the road. There's obviously no basis for the values they've projected.

The bottom line is that everyone is free to choose as they wish for whatever reason they wish. Just be very careful when weighing your options not to blindly follow the assertions offered by the one trying to sell you the product. Very rarely does a manufacturer highlight the downsides of a product/technology that they wish to market. I would not own/lease a hybrid for the reasons sited. But hey, to each his own! We're all here because of a shared passion for a great marque. No harm intended!

Please be sure to keep us apprised of your experiences with the car once you receive it!

As an aside - I'm actually surprised to see just how few have indicated they ARE getting an AH3. I wonder why?

I think many of you are forgetting that the main advantage of a hybrid is the ability to capture energy that is normally wasted to heat by the friction brakes. This means that while the energy is indirectly coming from petrol, the engine really isn't working that much harder. The weight of the motor and battery really become negligible with the efficiency gains of regen braking.

And while running the AC in a hybrid is still a waste of energy it is more efficient because the car can charge at a more efficient ICE RPM.

I think many of you are forgetting that the main advantage of a hybrid is the ability to capture energy that is normally wasted to heat by the friction brakes. This means that while the energy is indirectly coming from petrol, the engine really isn't working that much harder. The weight of the motor and battery really become negligible with the efficiency gains of regen braking.

And while running the AC in a hybrid is still a waste of energy it is more efficient because the car can charge at a more efficient ICE RPM.

I doubt very much the regenerative braking recovery will come anywhere near compensating for the battery mass penalty. Unless of course you drive downhill all the time.

I doubt very much the regenerative braking recovery will come anywhere near compensating for the battery mass penalty. Unless of course you drive downhill all the time.

If you take into account that mass is only important (in discussion of fuel economy) during acceleration you can come to some rudimentary conclusions based on the formula for KE.

To accelerate the additional 305lb of the AH3 to 40MPH, it would require ~280,000 J of energy. Stopping the 3860 lb car from 40 MPH (factoring in an efficiency of roughly 85% for the battery and inverters, which is close) would produce 3,084,000 J of energy. If you ask me, that's a pretty substancial gain. That energy can then be used to assist the ICE, allowing it to run at a more efficient speed and use less gas.

For the assertion of only being useful on hills, it is true that the benefit is even larger there because normal cars simply lose all the energy put into climbing, hybrids can recapture much of that energy. But that doesn't mean it isn't still successful in stop and go.

The AH3 uses it's brakes like any other F30, so only a small percentage of that braking regen is actually harvested.

The biggest problem in 'harvesting' brake energy is the randomness of situations, and the human factor. There is no AI good enough to predict what you as a driver are intending to do. It would help if the car had a thumb operated regen brake, so you could use that instead of the brake pedal.

No doubt the AH with go into harvest mode when the throttle pedal is at 0%. If you were driving correctly, anticipating traffic conditions ahead, you would use this mode to coast. In the AH it would be like applying the brakes softly, which means you can't coast as far.

You talk about weight of the batteries, but the system also has extra rotational drag, add all these negatives up and you soon realise you are going in the opposite direction to efficient motoring physics.

Lastly, if you have managed to drive like a nun and re-coup some of your capital outlay, the first invertor failure you have will soon have you back in a big deficit. Invertors are notoriously fragile.

More low end torque means balding tires faster. Even more money you have to pay. It'll just be like driving a Benz. Plus I can't imagine the weight distribution being all that great.

For me all of the extra creature comforts people get these days are a waste. It no longer has the essence of a real drivers car. All that extra weight for a few amenities. But to each his own. Enjoy your new car no one can take that away from you.